Maelock is awake!

I have far more armies for Warmachine and Hordes than I will ever need. I am not 100% sure why I started another only a while back. It was probably related to some deal where I thoght I could get the guts of the army cheap enough that it wasn't too much of an investment. Here is my first painted Warlock for the Gators. Maelock is a fairly complicated model with a lot of textures concentrated into small areas. I had to refer fairly often to the Privateer Press website to see a full rotation of the model so I could work out what exactly everything is. I think I got everything correct! I didn't go for too much blood as I felt that was more likely to result in me screwing up what I had already painted. I know I should add some here and there but really I am too lazy. The model is done and I am happy with it!

I can now finally play with my Gators army which will be fun. I would like to get some of my Bog Trogs finished first. I think I have eight of them somewhere completed and two awaiting paint. Once they are done I have most if not all of the releases for the army complete so I can get more or less anything to the table in short order. I always try to keep up with the latest releases for this army and my Circle one but Medieval II total war has been distracting me from painting quite a lot over the last week and a half. Lets hope I can break the addiction.

Painting Fail

Sometimes despite all the best inspiration and techniques painting just goes wrong. I painted this Feralgeist twice now and both times it has come out terribly. The standard scheme is nice but I wanted to go for something a little different. I started off with a blue scheme and it came out really bad. I am not sure why but I guess I started with too dark a base coat. It made the ghost seem too solid. I didn't learn from this however and I think I have repeated the same thing here. The red purple base colour here is just too solid looking. I highlighted it in reverse much like painting flame. I brought it down to a yellow white in the deepest crevasses. It just doesn't look right to me. I won' be changing him however, done is done. I have too many other models calling for attention at the moment. I may revisit him at a later date. Aat least for now he is a lesson to pay a little bit more attention to the planning stages of painting!

Witchdoctor

I think it is impossible to paint this miniature without singing the damned Witchdoctor song. It was stuck in my head for the entire day after I finished. That song is a most infectious earworm. I loved this model the second I saw it. It is quite subtle which I think but that is good. I guess this model could easily have competed with the factions Warlocks if designed poorly. Despite having seen the artwork ages ago I thought that he might come with a mask. This would have been too similar to Calaban. Too much robes would have been similar to Barnabas. The model is really nicely detailed. The skull level is acceptable. I hate models that are really bedecked in skulls. I guess a Wwitchdoctor can be expected to have a few.

Painting this model was fun, much more than expected. I guess this is due to solo syndrome. As I have stated all to often I love painting solos. It is one model and it feels like I make a lot of progress quickly. I followed the brown scheme I used for the rest of my Gatormen. This presented a problem as my other gators don't have clothes. I didn't want the brown on the clothes to blend too much in so I went for a colder brown than I usually would. I think it contrasts nicely. I have seen on the PP fora a nicely painted Barnabas model with a green tinge to the robes. I was tempted to copy it but maybe I will keep it for one of the Warlocks.

I have used the model in a game and he was fairly useful. He would have been much more useful if I had understood how sacrifical strike works. I used him with a Posse in an eBaldur list. Adding tough to a unit benefitting from Baldur's feat bonus means these guys are not going anywhere soon.

Ninja Turtle

I have to say I was really tempted to add some extra details to this model. A pair of katanas and a headband would be a great addition. The stock model is fairly fantastic without anything added on. I don't think the Ironback is the best beast in the limited selection of the Blindwater Congregation but it looks cool, that is good enough for me. I wanted to paint him to stand out a litle from the rest of the army which is mainly brown. I ended up painting him mainly brown. I don't know what it is but I can't seem to branch out into something more vibrant. The skintone you see here is Scorched Brown (GW) highlighted with Sunburst Yellow (GW). It gives an interesting green/yellow tone to the final few highlights. I thought it wuld be more vibrant but I think the complementary tone on the shell doesn't help it to pop.

I painted the shell with Scorched Brown highlighted with Parasite Brown (Vajello). I wanted a strong orange colour. I think it worked out okay but a lot of the depth is lost. I am considering some brown glazes to bring out the detail on the shell and scales a little better. I don' know yet if that would work. I have heard that a blue glaze can work really well with brown but I would be too scared to try that here. Its just too much to have to fix if it goes wrong. I haven't done the base yet in these pictures as I want to varnish the model first. Once I decide whether I have more to do or not I can get busy with that.

I have to buy Barnabus and a Bullsnapper and that will be my thirty five point army complete. I don't know if I will really expand it much more. I want to get busy with my Khador soon and this makes a nice brak point with the Congrgation. I just need to get the last few bits for my Circle army complete too. Hand Cannon Online has some of the best Blindwater paint schemes I have seen so I suggest if you are painting this army that you check them out here.

Blindwater Congregation

I recently picked up some Warbeasts for a Blindwater Congregation army. I picked up the Gatorman Posse and Bog Trogs when they came out first and it isn't much of a step to now build a full thirty five point list. The first up is a Blackhide Wrastler. I really hated this beast when I saw it first but it really has grown on me. Its defintely no Snapjaw but it is nice. Snapjaw is a wonderful Alligator model, filled with menace and character. The Wrastler is more generic and lacks the attitude. It is fine for a standard beast.

I painted him up to match the Gatorman Posse I have previously painted. I avoided green as it isn't a colour that works well for them I think. In my opinion it is really vibrant and makes them have an unnatural look. I think a warm brown works nice on the models and maintains some realism. I used the brown red on the hood to add a visual strong point to the model. The light here washes the depth out a little.

I have always wondered why a Blackhide Wrastler doesn't have a black hide, so I decided mine must have one. I painted the back very dark but not quite black. Scorched Brown mixed with a little Chaos Black, both GW paints, gave me a great base and I worked them up a little with Bone White (Vajello). I kept the highlights to a minimum so that the colour remained dark. I should maybe have done some extreme highlights but that is a technique that just doesn't look right to me and I am not very good at it.

I have noticed some really awesome Gatormen on the Hand Cannon Online blog, here, and I will be taking some inspiration from the wonderfully painted models there. I still have a few models such as the Ironback Spitter and a Bull Snapper to paint. I might go for some green with those models and see how it works. It will at least be some good practise for me.

Friday Showcase - Bog Trog Ambushers

Keeping the Blindwater theme of last weeks Showcase here are my Bog Trog Ambushers. These are the only models predominately green in all of my Hordes models. I felt that I couldn't really justify painting them any other colour. I still went with the muted tones and I think it worked pretty decently. The models are quite detailed and while I usually don't like that these were fun to paint. There are little frogs, turtle shells and various bones all over and they really give the models a nice swampy feel. It is really in contrast to the rather simple Gatormen.

The colour scheme is fairly close to the studios. Sadly there was never a good painting guide for these guys, well at least in Evolution. Maybe there is one in the Minions book? The gatorman guide was excellent despite the fact I didn't follow it. Privateer Press do some excellent painting guides in the books easily on par with anything the 'Eavy Metal team do. As was usual I didn't buy the full unit I instead have eight models so I am going to need to pick up another blister and somehow match them in with the earlier ones. I hate doing that as so far my attempts have been failures. I have spent a few evenings this week just mixing colours for my Tharn flesh and I haven't yet hit upon the correct formula. I know the highlight was Elf Flesh (GW). The base colour has been elusive. I even went to GW and picked up some paints I haven't had for a while. I am thinking that the base colour is Scorched Brown. I usually use Vajello's Charred Brown but it doesn't have the same red content so the skin comes out very very pale. I have no idea what I used for the Bog Trogs so it is going to be fun finding out, Once again the idea of a painting diary seems like a good one! Now it is back to the Chain-Attack podcast and some painting.

Some Bones to Grind

These have been sitting on my desk three quarters complete for years. Finally getting the Farrow Bone Grinders done is a pretty good feeling. I am lazy and great at procrastinating. I often get compliments and comments about how often I manage to post completed things here. However it really takes a lot of willpower to keep me sitting at my desk and not off playing Star Wars or Skyrim. I think I would really prefer to be spending my time playing them however much I say I enjoy painting. There was something about the Bone Grinders that really prevented me from painting them. What exactly I can't say but the longer I left them the harder it was to get them done. I started them while supervising a Warhammer Tournament just after they became available. The base coats and some highlights were done. One model was even completed pretty much. Then they just sat there gathering dust. So last week while I contemplated the Celestial Fulcrum I instead found myself picking up the Bone Grinders. I think it is now four years since I started them. I couldn't match the colours no matter what I tried. So I am left with one little piggie thats much redder than the others. It's not so bad. The one thing I did notice while painting them is that they were actually fun to do. Maybe it is the fact that they are finished finallly that is exacting some influence on my judgement but I was considering picking up some of their brigand cousins to do. However I must stay disciplined and try to clear some more of the backlog...

One interesting side note is that on Saturday morning I awoke to find my left hand completely covered in paper cuts. Now I did have a few beers before taking the train home but I remember reading No Quarter whch I had just picked up. Enough to anaesthetise my hand obviously. It must have the sharpest pages ever because I have about six almost parallel two inch long paper cuts across my palm and no idea how they got there.

Friday Showcase - Gatorman Posse

When the Gatormen appeared I rushed out to get them. These are absolutely fantastic models and exemplify everything great about the Hordes range.They are really something new and look fantastic. Okay with Hordes models in general it might be a new take on an old idea but I think these are really something fresh. I had seen some of the Wargods of Aegytpus crocodile models and while they are pretty good these voodoo gatormen are something awesome. Since the release of the Blindwater Congregation as a faction things have only been getting better.

I painted mine brown in keeping with the Circle Orboros theme of Autumn. The less green the better. I also wanted to distinguish them a littl emore by giving them stripes. I am not 100% sure if this occurs in actual Alligators but it felt right. All in all I think they came out well. I have enough to finish off this unit and I am thinking I could easily pick up a second... though that would mean I have started another faction.

Hunting for Totems!

I have a nice game of Hordes to look forward to tonight. Most of my gaming these days is done via Vassal. It does manage to keep me motivated to paint however! I managed to finish the Totem Hunter over the last few days. I went with a very different colour scheme from my Circle Force for him. The blue on the armour is a little more subtle in real life. The photo really strengthened it. I wanted an almost black and gold colour scheme. The blue just gives it something more visually interesting. The armour was a pain to paint. My gold is fairly old and it doesn't really give good coverage anymore. Getting new paint meant going out and so lazy me just tried as best as I could with the old gold. Anyway I finally managed to get it to come out nice. I highlighted it with silver to break up the strong yellow tone. I think it worked out fairly well.

One big problem is I bought this model in MKI and I have no new cards for him. I can't get cards either as they are not available as a deck. If I want to play him I think I would have to buy the Minions book. Thats not really what I want to do. So Privateer Press please hurry up and bring out the cards I need!

Friday Showcase - Swamp Gobbers

These guys are great. Firstly there are only two of them so its not going to take long to paint them. Secondly they are so characterful they are fun to paint and finally they are also great in the game so thats motivation to get them done. These were one of the first units for my Circle force that I painted. I tested out some different colours and while I think they worked out fairly well they were not done perfectly. Yellow skin is pretty weird but I wanted to avoid green. It is far to strong in a visual sense and I didn't want these to take away from my rule of no green for the army. Well I use green but only for armour or gems. It is a pity that there are not more models in the range as characterful as these. Swamp Gobbers would make for an awesome faction!

Photography and why mine sucks

I was scanning through some of the images on my Photobucket account today when I came across my Circle and Minion miniatures. These are all sitting on a shelf in Ireland now not doing much except gathering dust. They are some of the best miniatures I have ever managed to paint and yet I was never really able to show them off. Why? Well my photography skills suck. I could blame my camera as I have had it for nearly ten years now and even back then it was a basic model! However that wouldn't be true. My camera hasn't changed and yet my current crop of photographs are much much better. These Swamp Gobbers are about the best of what I would have taken back then. The first thing to note is the model is poorly framed. Back then Photobucket didn't have a crop function and I certainly didn't have Photoshop. So this guy sits swallowed up by the gloomy background. The next thing to notice is the lack of contrast between the model and the background. Both are shadowy and dark. This was due to the fact that I was relying on some thin sunlight coming in through the venitian blinds of my apartment. Depending on the irish weather I could have a lot or I could basically have none, generally I had none. Now I have two daylight lamps that drown my subject in light. I could do with at least one more to be honest as I often still have some shadows in my photographs but this is kept to a minimum in general. The coulrs are much truer to what they are when viewed by the eye and I also can't hide the many mistakes me the lazy painter makes. Finally one big change I made and one I don't see replicated much is a grey background. Having scoured many fora in the search for the best miniatures and their painters I often noticed that the best had been photographed on a grey background. I copied this as far as I could. In a lot of my photographs you will have seen the simple grey t-shirt I use. Suprisingly it is quite blue but comes out much more neutral in the photographs. Why? Well I have no idea but it looks fine and whatever is happening to the colours of the t-shirt doesn't seem to be happening to the colours on the model, at least that I can make out. The reason given for this background on various fora is that professional photographers use it and so if they are getting paid for their knowledge then they have to be correct. So ever since then I have used it to.

I would love to have access to my Hordes models again. I really poured a lot of effort into them and as an army they are by far the nicest I have painted. I would really really love to take them out again and do them some justice in the photography department. Maybe if I can finally get back to Ireland then I can collect these too. At the moment I need to bring what is left of my Warmachine army, the remnants of my Dwarves and then pretty much everything from Primal and Evolution for Circle... Thats a lot.